A neighbor, who lives a couple houses down from us, has a big walnut tree in his yard. This time of year the walnuts are falling to the ground and some are getting in the road. It made my mind go to my Granddaddy. Now while I was very young when my maternal grandparents passed away, I still have some precious memories.
They lived on a big piece of land out in the country. There was a big pasture field and barn and another smaller field for the garden. My Grandmother had a separate canning building and a huge kitchen. I can picture her standing in there frying up something good on the stove or at the sink looking out the window. One of the things I remember her making was fried biscuits. Whether they were fresh or leftover, she would put some butter in the skillet and fry them up on top of the stove. Might sound weird if you have never had them, but they were some of the best things you ever had.
The garage was separate and off from the house. Granddaddy had a light blue Dodge pick-up truck. They lived on top of a hill and he wouldn't start it until he was going down almost to the bottom of the hill. He would let it drift and get going. He said it saved on gasoline. Sometimes I would go to town with him. For safety reasons he wouldn't let us ride on the back of the truck. However, when we would get back from town and were almost to the house, he would pull over and let us sit on the back of the truck for the last minute or two of the drive.
(Not his truck but something close to it)
So, back to the Black Walnuts. He had 2 or 3 separate buildings for tools and workshops. There was a big black walnut tree and I can't really remember where it was. I think it might have been along the fence line separating the pasture field from the garden. Anyways, sometimes the walnuts would be all around the bottom of the tree and we would go pick them up and take them into one of his workshops. He'd sit down and put me on his lap. We would sit there and crack them open and eat the walnuts. Of course with it being the black walnuts, you would get a little dirty because the shells really were black. I can hear him chuckling right now. He was a large man. Not fat or anything just a big man with big shoulders. I remember as a kid thinking his hands were so big.
Grandaddy had a swing on the front porch and he would go sit in it when his work was done. Of course with me coming later in life, that meant that they were older too. He would tell me we were going to play a game. He said he would time me to see how fast I could run around the house. He would have us "play that game" over and over again until we were worn out. As a kid we just thought we were playing a game. He sure tricked us! He was probably sitting there in the swing just a laughing at us kids running around the house. The whole time he was sitting still and resting while we were running and getting tired.
Well that's enough for today. The tears have already been rolling down my face from thinking about this, but it has also brought a smile to my face.
Precious memories...they are priceless treasures!
(Pictures are courtesy of Google. I did not take time to search through all of the boxes of photos that have not made it into scrapbooks yet. Sorry.)
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